TO GERDY AND BEAU, WITH LOVE

(A TRIBUTE TO THE DOGS IN MY LIFE)

My wife just got a dog. His name is Beau. He’s a little cavapoo—one of those fancy poodle mixes. He has soft, kinky, hypoallergenic fur with markings like a Holstein cow, black and white with brown eyebrows and a big black spot over one of his eyes. He’s adorable.

Keri said she wanted a dog to keep her company when I’m gone. (This sounds like I’m dying. As far as I know, I’m not.) The truth is, I’m not gone as much as I used to be, back in the early days of my career when authors still did book tours. I think she feels this way because the kids are all gone so now, when I’m away, it’s unusually quiet around the house.

What is most surprising to me about Keri’s decision is that she was never a dog person. When we were dating, she told me she never wanted a dog in our house, which was nearly a deal breaker for me. She grew up with a dog, a yappy little Yorkshire terrier named Fred. They say that dogs take on their owners’ personalities and, in this case, it was true. Fred was Keri’s father’s dog. Her father was a gruff little Italian man, a union negotiator for a copper mine. The first time I went home with Keri both her father and his dog growled at me.

Beau wasn’t actually the dog Keri was planning to get. She had found a cavapoo breeder online who gave the litter temporary names based on Disney characters. The dog she’d picked out had been named Buzz, after Buzz Lightyear. When we got to the breeder to meet her dog, Buzz was, in Keri’s words, a buzzkill. He barely responded to her attention.

There were a half dozen dogs in the litter and one of the others, named Tarzan, was a different story. Maybe it’s true that dogs pick their owners, but Tarzan, aka Beau, pranced over and wouldn’t stop licking me. I handed him to Keri and he kept licking her face. The choice was obvious. After much consideration, she named him Beau, as in Beau Brummel. (That’s okay, I didn’t know who that was either.) We brought him home for Christmas.

When I was nine, my brother and his girlfriend gave me a dog for my birthday. I have no idea what breed it was—a mix of some kind—but she was small and cute with short golden hair. They had named her Gerdy Grouch. It was an awful name, but I was only nine and it hadn’t occurred to me that I could change it, so Gerdy she remained. The timing of the gift was perfect. We had just moved into a run-down neighborhood in a rat-infested home in Utah. It was a horrible time of life. My family was in crisis, and I had no friends and an abusive schoolteacher. I was bullied and beaten up on a regular basis.

But I had Gerdy to come home to. Together we would explore the undeveloped acres of fields around us. She was always at my side. We had two other dogs: my sister’s, a Pomeranian named Honey, and my brother’s, a mutt named Chester.

Things began to look up for our family and we moved out of that rotten neighborhood. A year later, one day before school, my mother asked me to get the dogs in. I went outside and called for Gerdy, who was across the street playing with Chester. As always, Gerdy came as soon as I called. I didn’t see the car coming down the street, but she ran right in front of it. I could see her little body falling under the car as it passed, leaving her lying in the road. The car stopped as I ran to her. Gerdy was still alive, but on her side writhing in pain. I picked her up and cradled her in my arms. She licked me on the mouth, then died. I remember sitting in the road holding my little friend when the lady walked up to me.

“Is that your dog?”

It was an inane question. I couldn’t answer. I just looked up with my arms full, my chin quivering, and tear-filled eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she sputtered, “but it ran in front of me. I couldn’t stop in time.” She stood there awkwardly for a moment, then got back in her car and drove away.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I carried my little dog home. To this day I don’t understand my mother’s response, but she reacted poorly. Coldly. “You need to go to school,” she said. “You can bury her when you get home.”

I laid Gerdy by the side of the house, covered her with her blanket, then washed my face and walked to school. At lunchtime I didn’t eat. I went outside on the school lawn, as far away from anyone as I could, and cried until the bell rang.

For months I mourned Gerdy. It was my first taste of death of someone close to me, and the bitterness seemed more than I could bear. Gerdy was the only dog I’d ever owned. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t want to feel that loss again. We had other dogs, family dogs, but none that were just mine.

A reporter once asked me why I wrote stories that made people cry. I had to think about it. Then I replied, “The stories that stayed with me as a child were the ones that made me cry. Stories like Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows.” I suppose it’s no coincidence that both of those stories were about dogs.

Beau has bonded to Keri. He jauntily follows her around the house like a shadow. When she goes to bed, he finds a nook in her position and curls up into her. I don’t know why, but it brings me unspeakable joy. Since I go to bed later than Keri, I come in, scoop Beau up (after scratching his belly, which he always wants), and put him in his crate. I then let him out in the morning, at which time he immediately jumps on the bed and licks Keri’s face. Almost every day, Keri wakes laughing. It’s a joyful way to start the day. Beau has brought remarkable happiness into our home.

Dogs are wonderful that way. They are wonderful teachers. They are practically synonymous with loyalty. And love. I wish I could love like Beau does. Like Gerdy did. Canis familiaris has the remarkable ability to love unconditionally, something we could all use a lot more of in our lives. I think the world needs more dogs.